Growing Up In Eccles 1951 To 1968

A Memory of Eccles.

I lived in the Red Bull from age 6 to 23. I have so many good memories, from playing in the surrounding countryside - the chalk pits, the clayhole reservoir, the woods, the ruined cement works etc. The village infants school down Eccles Row ('Ticklebelly road' - there's a story to that), and I think it was called Sears, a shop on the corner of Eccles Row. The pub used to have a small third bar for off sales, and every Sunday the Winkle van would turn up so you could buy a pint of winkles. It had an Air raid siren on a tower at the edge of the car park and we used to fire catapults at it to get the blades to turn so it would start wailing! I remember the Furniture (?) shop, Reids, Coggers and Southwells farms, fighting Maybugs with cricket bats on the Rec (recreation ground) and so much more. As I grew up, I helped with the pub work, and I remember a customer in the Saloon bar complaining that I overcharged him by a farthing for a round that should have cost eleven pence and a halfpenny ! My association with Eccles finished when my Mum, Dot Clifton the Landlady,died in 1962.

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